


the things you just escaped (don't you dare look back)

by piggy09



Series: the unforsaken road [5]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/M, Helena warnings, Incest overtones like WHOA, More mentions of that Prolethean surgery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-26 20:04:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1700819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's alright. Sarah is alright, and Helena is alright, and they are sisters in a tent in the woods and nobody is hollow, nobody is afraid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the things you just escaped (don't you dare look back)

**Author's Note:**

> I am a broken person. Helena has broken me. I am broken. I am _broken_.

No matter how much Helena eats, her belly is still empty – no. Not her belly. Her belly fills as quickly as it always has; food is just as much as a comfort as it always is, a stockpile against bad times, hollow times, famine times.

It is the other place in her that is empty. Empty aching hollow.

Sarah has not made it alright yet. Helena had started believing that Sarah could, that Sarah would – that Sarah would realize that she and Helena are connected, that Sarah would understand that Helena’s pain is, a little bit, her pain. Helena had belief in Sarah, that Sarah would know what to do.

Instead Sarah says _Cold River, when are we getting to Cold River, where is Cold River_.

She had said that she was not lying. She had said that she was not using Helena.

She had said it like this:

_You saved my life._

_You’re my sister_.

She had _said_ , Helena tells herself as they set up the tent – or as Sarah sets up the tent, as Sarah shoos Helena away every time she tries to help. Sarah had said she was not lying. It’s just – she just cares about the…others. She cares about the others, who are not safe. Helena and Sarah are safe. The others are not safe, and Sarah wants to help them. She wants to help them so badly that it is snapping at her heels.

That’s alright. Helena understands that.

Sarah isn’t using her, she tells herself firmly, over and over, because that is how she learns best (original) (light) (meathead) (Helenastop). (It is always repetition.) Sarah is just blinded by her need, the way Helena was blinded when what she needed was Sarah.

Soon she will bring Sarah to Swan Man and Sarah will realize that it is _Helena_ who needs her. Then she will help.

Not now, though. Sarah still does not realize how much she needs Helena, how much Helena needs her. Helena swallows down the hurt in her throat; she will be patient, she will snap up the scraps of affection that Sarah gives her and she will remind her that Helena is Sarah’s sister. She will remind Sarah that they need each other.

She swallows down the hurt in her throat and breathes, somehow, around the emptiness inside of her. Food can help. Food will help. Food always helps.

She saves some for Sarah – food always helps, after all, and Helena will take care of Sarah. Sarah needs Helena. Helena needs food. Sarah needs food, too. Helena knows how these things work.

Sarah leaves for the car, and Helena stuffs her mouth full of beans, swallows and swallows and waits for the warm feeling of happiness that accompanies food. Food and Sarah! She is blessed, she tells herself, but the word _blessed_ rings hollow.

She is still mulling this over, rolling the beans in her mouth – she’s had worse, she’s had so much worse – when Sarah comes back. She smells like Sarah, and the cold outside.

It is difficult for Helena to be upset with Sarah, when Sarah is there. She lets her feelings go. Bye bye, angerfearsadnesslonelinesshollowache. Bye bye.

Sarah thumps her bag to the floor of the tent and Helena shoves another spoonful of beans into her mouth. See, she has everything she needs to be happy.

“You’ve got an iron gut, haven’t ya,” Sarah says, and Helena feels a warm surge of pride, despite herself. It’s not like she did anything, but Sarah saying warm things towards her makes her feel warm.

Sarah does not say a lot of warm things to her.

Possibly this is the nicest thing Sarah has ever said to her.

Helena doesn’t think about this; she folds it carefully and tucks it away for later. Instead she looks at Sarah, who smells of cold things and who needs Helena. Helena rolls up, sits to mirror Sarah. (She will remind Sarah that Helena is her sister. She will remind Sarah that they need each other.)

“I only ate half,” she says, and offers the beans. She wonders if Sarah understands what this means – understands that Helena has never saved food for _anyone_ , anyone except herself.

(This is in part because nobody has ever needed Helena, except Helena. Now Sarah needs Helena, and Helena loves Sarah so much it is sick in her throat and in her chest, sick everywhere except for where she is hollow.

They took—)

Sarah takes the beans, smells them, says, “No thank you.”

Oh.

Alright.

She doesn’t understand, then.

Alright.

Helena’s eyes track the beans; it is a bad habit, probably, that she cannot stop looking at food. She will abandon this habit when it stops being useful.

This, she thinks, is a thing she and Sarah have in common.

Another bad habit: trying to make Sarah understand things she refuses to. Still, Helena says, “You have to eat, Sarah,” because she does. Sarah has to eat. Helena will support her even if she doesn’t eat, because Helena has supported Helena when Helena has eaten nothing and been alright for it. Helena will take care of her sister.

…Still, Sarah did turn down the food. Helena takes it. The beans are cold and thick in her mouth. She dreams the can holds a little of Sarah’s body heat.

“So,” Sarah says, cold as beans. “Your Cold River, it’s not on the map. Where is it?”

Always with the Cold River. Helena looks at Sarah, who is strung tight as a wire. She is humming with anxiousness; Helena loves her. Helena loves her more than Helena loves anything.

Sarah, she is beginning to realize, may not feel the same.

(Loving Sarah is still the loneliest thing Helena has ever done, and she has been alone her entire life. It makes a certain kind of sense, in her head, that it would take finding her missing piece to teach her what real emptiness was. A certain sad kind of sense.)

She looks at Sarah. She does not say: _did you lie, when you said you were not using me?_ She does not say: _sometimes I think you will never love me, and I am so afraid_. She does not say _right now, I am so afraid_ , she does not say _cut me open and put your hands in my stomach, I am hollow_ , she does not say _forget the others please forget the others please_ , she does not say: _shoot me again, so that I can have a part of you to carry with me always._

She says, smiling, “That would spoil the surprise.”

(Sarah we are sisters Sarah we are sisters Sarah _please_ we are sisters please.)

“Why don’t you just tell me,” Sarah sighs, pulling on her jacket, “where Duncan is? We can take him to Leekie.”

She does not say: _no,_ you _could take him to Leekie._

She looks at Sarah, looks down, looks back up. Truth always hurts. She mutters:

“If you knew where Swan Man was, you would leave me behind.”

She does not say: _tell me I am wrong. Please. Please tell me I am wrong, and that you would never leave me, and that we are sisters. Tell me I have saved your life._

It is good that she does not say this, probably, because Sarah says nothing. Sarah just _looks_ at her. She breathes out through her nose. Helena wonders if Sarah is figuring out how to shoot her again. Maybe if she spends every minute thinking Sarah is going to shoot her it will hurt less, if she does.

Maybe that way if she doesn’t, it will be a pleasant surprise.

Sarah will do anything to protect the people she loves – Kira, Felix, all of the others.

Helena is not on this list. That’s alright. Sarah wept, and said _You’re my sister_ , and hugged Helena. Willingly, she wrapped her arm around Helena.

(Helena knew this was too good to be true she knew it, she told herself it was—

It could still be true. Maybe. Once Sarah finds Swan Man. Helena will see what she does then, once she knows.)

She touched Helena. Helena loves her, loves her loves her loves her. She will do _anything_ to protect the people she loves. Her list is short: Sarah.

…

Kira.

“ _Sestra_ ,” she says, slowly, looking straight into the lantern until the light burns her eyes, blinds her.

“Yeah,” Sarah says, blunt.

“If you have Kira,” and Sarah looks at her – she does not like it when Helena speaks of Kira, not after. Not after. After...anyways. Sarah looks at her, and Helena continues, “and we are twins…could I have babies too?”

The last part she whispers. A smile pulls at the corner of her mouth. She thinks about Kira, and Kira’s hand in hers, and she thinks about what-happened-to-you-Helena and a child, a child who is a lantern-smudge on Helena’s eyelids when she blinks, a child who no one asks that to.

(She thinks about the hollowness inside of her, briefly, but it is cold and dark and the lantern light is all around and Sarah is there, and looking at her.)

Sarah narrows her eyes. “Why?” she asks. Helena can see her desperately fumbling for the pieces – Sarah only saw Helena abducting Kira. She saw nothing else; she does not understand.

Helena wants to share with her, achingly she wants to tell her everything about herself. She wants to cut out everything _Helena_ and put it into Sarah’s hands.

She hums, looks away, and mutters, “I’m very good with children.” She can’t trust Sarah with Helena, yet. Not yet. She will say _this is me, Sarah, this is all of me, I need your help_ , and Sarah will say _where is Cold River_.

They just have to get to Swan Man, and then. And then.

Helena looks away (she can lie to Sarah but she does not like to lie to Sarah, does not like to look Sarah in the eye and lie to Sarah), but she can still hear her sister swallow, hear her rustle.

“You said the Proletheans did something to you,” Sarah says, her eyes steady on Helena’s face, steady as a sniper’s sight and just as dangerous, maybe. “Something about…married?”

Helena looks at the lantern fiercely until it burns her eyes. Then she looks at Sarah, who is obscured by the glare.

“What happened?” Sarah asks, soft, and words tremble on Helena’s tongue. She rolls her tongue around in her mouth until they scatter, swallows them down like cold beans. _What happened_ , Sarah asks, but what if Helena tells her and Sarah does not care at all? What if she says something cruel?

Then there is the fact that Helena can’t – she can’t – they took – she can’t. say. She can’t say. _I already told you_ , she wants to say, _they reached inside me and they_ took _and you were supposed to make me whole but then you let go and now you are here but just out of my reach and Sarah I miss you, Sarah I love you, Sarah they told me I was married and I thought only of you_.

At this point it seems like Helena has to choose between being Helena and being Sarah’s sister. Being Sarah’s sister means not being afraid or hollow. So.

She snaps her head down and says “I don’t know,” casually, spitting it out like bones. She pulls the hat she’s holding on her head.

“I’ve had a fever,” she lies, looking directly at Sarah. She does not say: _Look, Sarah, I am getting better at lying._

_Are you proud of me? Will you say nice things to me?_

_Will those be lies, too?_

Helena watches Sarah shift in the tent, watches her with love that feels like dying. She curls in on herself instinctively to protect herself from the pain. The pain of loving.

“Kira is lucky,” she says, before she can stop herself. She was thinking of love, and dying, and being someone on Sarah’s list. She didn’t quite mean to say that out loud.

“Why’s that,” Sarah says, and now it is Sarah who is not looking at her.

_Because you love her,_ Helena thinks, but she is Sarah’s sister and Sarah’s sister is not afraid, not when there are other people who need Sarah’s help.

“You’re a good mother,” she says instead, soft, and watches Sarah. Loss howls in her stomach.

“I don’t really think so,” Sarah says, and her voice is heavy and low and, no, wait, Sarah is sad now. That isn’t what Helena wanted; Sarah is not supposed to be sad, Helena is not supposed to be sad, they are supposed to find Swan Man and then they are supposed to fix each other, all the broken pieces of each other. She has to keep Sarah from being sad.

“There’s somebody here,” she whispers, intent (look Sarah I am getting better at lying), and Sarah whirls, says “What?”

She says it like “wot,” and that’s funny. See, they’re already getting better.

But Sarah’s afraid – Helena can read it in the tense lines of her shoulders, can read the sudden urge for a gun that is growing in her, digging roots. Guns are addictive things to have around. Lucky for Helena her weapons have always been a part of her.

Anyways. Sarah is afraid and Helena is sorry to make her that way, but Sarah would not trust her unless Helena led her somewhere by fear. Sarah has linked “Helena” and “threat,” so for Helena to be Sarah’s sister she will have to lead her through Helenathreat into sisterlove.

Sarah whirls and Helena tricks her fingers into being a wolf, the wolf that eats the sheep, woof. She says “woof” a few times for emphasis. Sarah turns to look at her, and not the wolf.

“Look, look,” Helena says, Helena who is Sarah’s sister. “He likes you.”

(I like you.)

(I am the wolf that eats the sheep.)

Sarah looks, obligingly; a smile wrinkles the corners of her mouth. There it is. Sarah is alright, and Helena is alright, and they are sisters in a tent in the woods and nobody is hollow, nobody is afraid.

Sarah laughs, a small huff of sound that Helena wants to breathe in, snap her teeth through, and she says, “He likes you!” again, like she’s offended.

Kiss kiss, says her mouth, says the mouth of the wolf. Kiss kiss.

(I like you. Kiss kiss.)

(You are so close and yet I cannot reach you. I like you. Kiss kiss.)

She makes a long slurping noise; the wolf licks Sarah’s face, because even in shadow puppets Helena cannot control herself, not really.

“Ew,” Sarah says, and grins. Happiness shines in her teeth and it makes Helena happy, suddenly, like sunshine shining into a great dark pit. Happiness floods her chest, he likes you, I like you, we make a family, yes?

“Gross,” Sarah says, slapping Helena’s hand away. Helena cannot stop laughing, rough barkhiccup sounds. Happiness floods her body, that she made Sarah smile. All on her own. All on her own she made Sarah smile, and her hand is warm (Sarah touched it) and her belly is full and they will find Swan Man, together, and it will be alright.

“Go to sleep, weirdo,” Sarah says – this is better than psycho, better than crazybitch, “weirdo” means something else, this is how it is to be Sarah’s sister – “we got an early start.”

Helena cannot stop laughing. The relief from the hollowness in her chest makes her giddy.

Sarah lies down across the tent, closes her eyes. Laughter dies in Helena’s chest and she watches Sarah, the tender curve of her eyelashes across her cheek. Helena would do almost anything for Sarah. She loves her, loves her, loves her.

Sarah’s eyes flick open; now she is watching Helena watch her, her eyes steady and calm and full of love, if Helena can convince herself the last part is true.

“Don’t let the bedbugs bite,” Helena says, soft, because that is what you are supposed to say, she thinks. No one has said that to Helena, but. No one has said a lot of things to Helena. That doesn’t mean she wants to say them to Sarah any less.

Sarah stares at her, and then shifts around. _This is how we were in the womb_ , Helena thinks, but Sarah is too far to hear her heartbeat.

But Helena is Sarah’s sister, not Helena, and she cannot feel sad, cannot feel loss, cannot feel hollow. They are in a tent together and she cannot feel alone.

She passes gas, and giggles. “Excuse me,” she says.

“Piss off,” Sarah groans, but she doesn’t mean it. Not really. She doesn’t mean it, and so Helena can stay, and sleep.

Sarah does not want her to go. Helena closes her eyes, and dreams.

* * *

Morning dawns bright, and cold, and sharp as a razor blade. Helena can feel the cold prickling along her skin (along her back) as they pack, as the two of them get into the car. It’s maybe not as big as Helena would like – not as big as a van – but bigger than…other things. Plus, it has Sarah in it. Sometimes Helena thinks about the places she would go for Sarah, but it is a long and exhaustive list and it makes her dizzy to think about it so she stops.

Right now she _is_ going places for Sarah, anyways. No need to consider. They’re speeding along and the scenery flickers bright outside the window. They’re going so fast, and the scenery is so bright – someday Helena wants to take Sarah on a motorbike, feel Sarah’s arms wrapped around her and show her, show her how fast you can go. It is like flying.

But this is good, this is more than good. Helena chews absentmindedly on something she found between the seats and fidgets. Her tongue rolls around her mouth and she leans forward to adjust the mirror (the mirror).

Sarah’s watching her by the time she’s done; she doesn’t look very pleased.

“God, you act like you’ve never been in a car before,” she grumbles, yanking the mirror back in place. She’s constricted by her seatbelt.

Helena doesn’t like those, much. Not enough movement. It’s too close – it is like someone touching you but also nothing like that. She wears it and thinks _cage_.

Besides, what if they are in danger? Helena will have to protect them both; she promised, after all, she promised to keep her sister safe. A cloth belt would only slow her down.

Sarah has said nothing, anyways, so Helena is alright. Probably.

“I’ve never been on road trip,” Helena mumbles, watching the scenery fly by out the window, fast, fast, they are leaving so many ghosts behind. “Only told where to go and what to do.”

This is the first time anyone has wanted to spend time with Helena, even if Sarah is just using her. (She hopes Sarah is not using her. She hopes. She hopes. She _hopes_.) Tomas and Maggie never wanted to spend time with her, not really. They drove her places in silence, or Helena drove in silence, and everything was silent and empty until she got blood on her hands. Praise God.

Now Helena is considering that silence; she reaches for the radio. She was never allowed to use the radio – one time she touched it and she was punished, and she was punished, she touched it and she was punished.

Music blares out. Quick, Helena changes the station. So many kinds of sounds, to fill the silence! People are amazing. People are miracles.

Sometimes Helena forgets that, because people are stupid and cruel. But they can make miracles, too, like desserts and good music.

She fiddles with the radio because that is what you are supposed to do, on road trips. She knows this. She learns. Sarah will laugh and they will be sisters, Helena will be Sarah’s sister and neither of them will be sad.

“Would you just—” Sarah says, unamused, “pick a station, please.”

Sarah, obviously, does not know how road trips work. That’s alright! Helena knows. They have plenty of time to learn each other, Helena and her sister, Sarah and her sister.

Besides, she’s found a station.

The cheery whistling starts and Helena grins, chews the remnants of her food, and looks shyly at Sarah. Helena knows this song; it was the first song that made sense, really, because of course you would love someone more if they reminded you of sugar, honey honey. All the best things in life are sweet.

Helena looks at Sarah. Oh, sugar. Honey honey. You are my candy girl, and you got me wanting you.

Sarah shakes her head, lip held firmly between her teeth. “Nuh-uh,” she says, and turns the radio down. “Not happening.”

Sarah does _not_ know how road trips work. Helena still has a lot of things to teach her sister, which is surprising. She’d thought Sarah knew more about family, but obviously she was wrong.

(This isn’t how she acted with Felix. Helena worries that if she was Felix, Sarah would laugh along instead of using small words and giving them no emotion at all.)

Stubborn, Helena turns the radio back up.

“Ah, for f…” Sarah begins, hands twisting the steering wheel like a neck (sometimes Helena thinks about Sarah killing people, killing people the way Helena killed people) (sometimes she thinks about this). But she stops! Helena is alright. If Helena had done wrong Sarah would tell her. She would be very loud.

Helena is alright, and the song is an easy rhythm to wrap her head around.

“You are my candy girl…” she sings along, words easy as assembling a sniper rifle. She lets her eyes flick over the scenery; she does not look at Sarah. (Truth always hurts.) “And you’ve got me wanting you…”

“Oh, this must have been a huge hit with the nuns in Ukraine,” Sarah says dryly, but she does say it to Helena! Something in Helena purrs, like a great big cat, because Sarah is speaking to her.

Maybe someday she will be tired of Sarah speaking to her.

Not today, though.

“Yes,” she blurts. “Super sunshine hit.”

(Her words are getting jumbled, because the song is fizzing like soda water and Sarah is talking to her and they are going so fast and it is just the two of them, Helena and Sarah, HelenaandSarah, and she wants to express that the song was light, she was light, but she can’t quite manage it.)

Sarah looks away and nods, like that made sense. Helena _loves_ Sarah.

She loves her so much that the words spill from her mouth, all of her spilling. She can’t keep still. She loves Sarah so much. “And you’ve got me watching _you_ ,” she croons to her sister, leaning over, filling the space between them.

“You gonna sing the whole way?” Sarah asks, words stale from frustration, like old crackers.

_Yes_ , Helena thinks, and she keeps singing.

…She realizes that she does not know the words.

Oh well! She keeps singing anyways, rocking in her seat. She can’t stop looking at Sarah, Sarah who is so beautiful. Helena is Sarah’s sister, and she wants to make her smile.

She sings too loud, maybe. Probably. _Definitely_.

Oh, but Sarah laughs.

Helena’s laugh is a rough sound, rusty from disuse, but Sarah’s laugh – like the rest of Sarah – is beautiful. Helena loves it so much. Helena loves Sarah so much.

“Stop, please,” Sarah says, but she is laughing! She is lying! She is a good liar, her Sarah is, such a good liar. It aches in Helena how much she loves Sarah; she wants to wreck three men, break their bones, she wants to wrap around Sarah and never let go, she wants to get out of the car and _run_.

She wriggles in her seat, a grin spreading across her face – she is losing the words, she is losing them under her love for Sarah, which still can fill the emptyachehollowachehollow inside of her. She can’t stop smiling. She is almost afraid of this, of this smiling. She can’t _stop_.

She sings louder. She wants the world to know: this is me, and my sister, and we are happy, and we are not afraid. She wants it to be loud, loud as anything. This is my sister. I have made her laugh. We will never be separate.

“Oh my _god_ , Helena, stop, please,” Sarah yells, but Sarah is a liar.

Sarah is a liar, and Sarah is laughing, and Helena is laughing. They drive on.

* * *

They drive on, and Helena leads Sarah true, the way she always does. Helena is very good at leading people; nobody realizes it, she thinks, and that is one of the reasons she is so very good. She leads Sarah in small breadcrumb pieces, only enough to get her to the next step, only enough light to illuminate the ground in front of her. She sings herself hoarse and shakes as much of the energy out of herself as she can (which is less, once Sarah made her wear her seatbelt) (Helena _hates_ seatbelts, cage cage cage).

They drive until they stop. Here is the church. Here is the steeple. Here is Helena’s back, aching aching. She thinks about Maggie. Good riddance, amen.

“This isn’t Cold River, Helena,” Sarah says, all of her good cheer gone. Helena’s heart sinks like a stone. Sarah does not trust Helena at all; she gropes, desperately, for the happy sunshine feeling, but like Cold River there is no joy to be found in her.

She can’t say anything. She does not say.

Sarah continues anyways (because Sarah doesn’t care about) (no) (no, Sarah cares, she does) (the problem is that when it is the two of them they are alright, but when Sarah thinks about the others she is not Helena’s sister anymore). “A church,” she mutters, and Helena’s mind is a frenzy of _amenamenamen_.

It calms when Sarah looks at her.

“Is this where Duncan is?” her sister asks – of course it is Swan Man who makes her look at Helena. Of course she does not look at Helena until it is necessary.

“Where he was last seen,” Helena says, swallowing down her hurt, because Sarah needs her, she needs Sarah, Sarah needs her and she can be what Sarah needs.

Sarah makes a small noise of understanding and Helena takes that as a sign to continue.

“Maggie tracked him here,” she says.

(A small part of her wants Sarah to ask about Maggie, think about Maggie and what she meant (or did not mean) to Helena.

Of course Sarah will not ask. That’s alright. That’s alright.)

Sarah has turned away from Helena, held up the photograph. Helena’s photograph.

“Now we follow his trail, yes?” Helena says, unbuckling her seatbelt (she _hates_ seatbelts, good riddance) and considering the problem of Ethan Duncan, Swan Man. She has plenty of experience with this – you find your prey, find its drinking hole and find its nest. Animals return to the same places, over and over. People are just stupid little animals, safe in their routines.

If this place is part of Swan Man’s routine he will be easy to find.

 “No no no no, no,” Sarah says, reaching out to grab Helena (to touch Helena!), “you are staying in the car. Don’t cause any trouble.”

_No_. Without Sarah the car is just a cage, big metal cage, he locked you in a cage he lied to you your entire life Sarah is locking Helena in a cage and lying, always lying, hands on leashes she _said_ she was not lying _no_.

Sarah opens the door and leaves; she is being _stupid_. One of them has spent her whole life hunting people down and it _is not Sarah_ , Sarah who has to be led. Helena’s heart thrums panic in her throat, like a bird, and Helena’s notstomach aches.

“Can I have radio—” she tries, desperate, but Sarah is saying _no_ , Sarah is taking the key, Sarah is looking her in the eye and saying, “Helena, just don’t _do_ anything, please.”

That’s not _fair_ , Helena _would_ do anything if Sarah said please. Anything. She would do anything, she wants to do anything, but Sarah won’t _let_ her. Sarah leaves, looks at her from outside, leaves, turns around and goes. Helena is left paralyzed, still as stone; already the space under her skin is screaming. Cage. Cage cage cage. Silent empty cage.

Sarah walks away, and everything is silent and empty and hollow.

(It’s not fair at all, it’s not right. Sarah needs Helena, Sarah needs Helena’s help, if Sarah needed Helena in the first place why is she abandoning her now, when they are finally doing something Helena knows how to do? It’s not fair and Helena is angry, afraid, alone. Alone.)

Energy jumps beneath her skin but she keeps calm, fingers drumming on her lip (closed circuit, Helena, love yourself, Helena, nobody else will be there for you, Helena). She looks around. The world is so big, outside of this truckcage.

Her eyes land on a neon sign. The Round Up bar-and-grill. Hm.

Sarah said _please_.

…Sarah does not have to know, does not have to know that too long in this truck would send Helena scratching at Helena’s skin, scratching writhing.

She gets out of the truck, folds her hands behind her back – she is a res-pec-ta-ble person, she is going to get a drink, she pays taxes and has a dog – and saunters over to the bar.

Guilt claws at her throat, but: when she is guilty she is not empty, and alone.

* * *

She saunters in through the door, sliding to the bar. Helena has been in bars before – ssh, don’t tell Maggie, don’t tell Tomas, don’t tell _Sarah_.

(Animals and watering holes. Helena is a predator and, like a predator, waits.)

She orders herself so many drinks, drinks that will burn out the emptiness and freeze it out, drinks that are all pretty colors, drinks that will dull her empty screaming skin and keep her from following Sarah, keep her from eating Sarah alive. The bartender looks at her and she widens her eyes, blinks.

She gets her drinks. They are lined up in front of her like ammunition in a gun; there is a reason they call these things _shots_ , Helena thinks, amused, picking up a glass and sniffing it.

It smells sterile and painful, like stitching herself up in a bathroom.

The drink burns going down. It burns hotter than Sarah in her chest and Helena feels guilty, for wanting the sting of it, for liking the sting of it.

But again: she is not alone when she is guilty. This is preferable; this can carry her through more hours of Sarah telling and giving her nothing. All sorts of people get drunk to fix their problems, Helena thinks, smacking her mouth to get rid of the burning in it. Every possible sort of person.

Oh, look, there’s one now. He is very large. Helena could break him.

_If you touch my drinks I will kill you,_ she thinks to him. He turns and looks at her and she watches him, watches him without looking like she is watching him; Helena will do anything to protect the people she loves, but she will also do a lot of things to protect her food. The same as any animal.

“Startin’ early, huh?” asks the man, eyeing her drinks. “Better pace yourself.”

Oh, he is just judging her. That is easier to deal with. Big silly man thinks he knows her, thinks he can tell her what to do.

Mm, is he giving Helena _orders_? He is not the sort of person who is allowed to give Helena orders, this big beast man, all his weight in the wrong places, all of him weak dead weight. He is not that sort of person at all.

“I’m on vacation,” Helena says (it’s _true_ …maybe), not looking at him, and downs another shot.

Bang.

It burns and burns and burns. Good. She hopes it chars her insides.

“You wanna join us?” asks the man, big _silly_ beast man, “We’re nicer than we look.”

If it looks like an animal, walks like an animal, and talks like an animal…well. It is probably just as nice as an animal, and that is not very nice at all.

Helena would know. She has been, at times, the meanest sort of animal there is. The kind that lives under bridges and snaps the weaker members of the herd up, bang. All the weak little sheep, all those inhuman things, she is the fairy tale monster, she is the wolf that eats the sheep.

The man pants next to her. Helena turns and eyes him, up and down. He is the sort of animal that wakes things best left sleeping, things best left lurking under bridges.

(She is on _vacation_. What a stupid man.)

“I think you bad goats,” she says, watching him from underneath her eyelids. “Mah.”

This takes a little while for him to process, this big waste of muscle, this sack of meat. Helena can hear his mind whirring. _Stupid_ , she thinks in a sing-song, turning back to her lovely pretty line of drinks.

There’s the rattle of a thought! He huffs out a breath, and then says, “Are you being _rude_ , ya little skank?”

No, she is being _honest_. Trust him to not know the difference.

He leans in closer, gesturing with his _big, strong finger_. Oh dear. Helena is _shaking_.

“I’m not quite sure I heard what you said,” he growls, like a tiny puppy trying to be frightening. _Woof_ , thinks Helena, and then she is thinking of Sarah and Helena in the tent and how Sarah is gone, Sarah left her alone, and then she is _angry_ , anger warm like alcohol in her veins.

She reaches out – easy – and snaps his finger with only a little grunt. She wants to break him into little tiny baby pieces. Then she wants to finish her drinks. Then she wants to go back to Sarah, and lean on Sarah, and sigh a little bit.

Unfortunately, she’s interrupted from her planning by the bellowing of the beast man, goat man. “You broke my finger!” he howls, like someone who has never been hurt in his life.

Helena does not say: _my sister shot me in the heart, you lumbering waste of flesh_. She does not say: _I was an angel, I was holy, amen_. She does not say: _you know_ nothing _of pain, nothing nothing nothing_.

She says: “Don’t be baby, I only sprain. Next one I break.”

_Come on_ , she thinks, _you goat, you bull, come to my red flag, I will break you_ down _and I will not even need to move_.

Her blood sings; when she has a purpose she has no time to be empty. This is not a purpose, not really, but it will do, it will do so nicely.

“You know _what_ —” he roars, and Helena thinks _Yes—_

Then there is a _man_ between them, saying, “Hey,” saying “hey,” saying “let her be, Carl.”

_Do not let her be, Carl_ , thinks Helena, and Carl snorts through his nose, _huff_ , and growls, “Move it, Jesse. She just—”

“Made herself clear,” says the intruder-man.

One breath, two (Helena’s muscles are singing), and then Carl-the-goat storms away, throwing “Crazy _bitch_ ” over his shoulder. Oh, no, Helena is _stung_. Somebody take her to the hospital for this horrible wound.

She waggles her tongue at him, even though he can’t see. The air tastes like violence.

But then he is gone, and it is just her and _Jesse_. Helena looks at him, wonders. He protected her, even though it was very, very unnecessary. It makes Helena want to laugh, how unnecessary it was. But: he is only the second person to ever defend Helena, and Sarah has never shoved herself between Helena and a threat.

She has shoved herself in front of Helena, when Helena was the threat. But.

Helena considers him, this Jesse. She looks at him unblinking

He tips his hat, says, “Sorry about that, ma’am.”

He says _ma’am_. Helena looks at him; her breathing stutter-stops. Sometimes she plays at being a real person, but she never expects anyone to believe it. She knows she is always Helena-the-killer beneath her skin.

But. He – he doesn’t. He thinks she is Helena- _ma’am_. He doesn’t know anything at all; like a fish, he is dumb. Like a fish, he knows nothing.

Helena thinks – maybe – she might like to be Helena- _ma’am_. For a little while. Only until she finishes her drinks. Only until she goes back to Sarah. (She will always go back to Sarah.)

She watches Jesse sideways as he discards his gloves, calls, “Miller, pork rind.” She takes a lazy sip of her next drink. It is blue, all chemicals. It is maybe the sort of thing Rachel would drink – Helena remembers Rachel, remembers watching those copy-lips on Paul’s lips.

Her lips meet cool glass, instead.

The pork rinds arrive; as always, Helena struggles in keeping her eyes off the food. She _wants_ it. But Helena- _ma’am_ would not take; Helena- _ma’am_ would not stuff the food into her face. She is not an animal.

This is a fun game, pretending to be a person.

Helena slides the farthest drink over the Jesse – people offer things to others, that is what they do. She offered beans to Sarah, but that is only because she loves her; Sarah (who is a real person, despite what she said to Kira) gave her mother a chair, Helena-as-Sarah gave her mother a drink. Grace (who was real, who was maybe the only real person in that whole fear-stinking place) gave her food.

The food was a lie, but it was a gift. Real people, they give others things.

“White Russian?” she murmurs, offers, her eyes the flashed belly of the lesser wolf.

He looks at her for a long breath and Helena is afraid that she has misjudged the game; then he sets down his drink (gently, he is gentle) and slides the bowl across to her.

“Pork rind?” he murmurs back. Helena cannot stop herself from stuffing them into her mouth but she smiles at him, her face a grimace around the mouthful.

He smiles back. Helena’s stomach flips, but that’s probably just the food.

* * *

Eventually the bar grows loud and Jesse leads Helena to a table – he does not try to touch her, which she appreciates. She hasn’t decided whether or not she would mind, if he touched her; until she is certain, though, it is best to avoid these things.

Then he looks at her and asks her for her story.

Helena’s mind grinds to a halt with a dull thud. She is very good at stories, but they are only tiny little ones – I am a barber _now_ , I am a businesswoman _now_ , I am Sarah _now_ and my knife is in your belly. She could never be Sarah or Elizabeth Childs or any of the others full-time. Too much work.

…Oh. Wait. The others.

Helena thinks very fast about what she knows, and then she has stitched a story together easy as skin.

“In Ukraine,” she tells Jesse, “I was police detective.” She looks away, embarrassed despite herself at the lie. To say she could have been would be an even bigger lie; she is human, she is not a copy, she would not lead a copy’s life. “I shot many criminals.”

(But never the one that counted, yes, Elizabeth? That one went free. Oops.)

She rests her head on her hand – like this, maybe? She feels all delicate and breakable, bones, china. Helena- _ma’am_ would shrink into herself but she would not stuff her hands between her knees, bounce and rock. She would be a neat fold, like a fortune teller, like a riddle.

“Ukraine, huh?” asks Jesse, and Helena wants to blurt, _yes, this is true_.

She does not. Jesse sighs, licks his fingers (Helena watches), and mutters, “I’ve never been farther than Sioux Falls myself.”

Helena takes this as a sign to continue the story, the _stories_ , along to someone she has not met. Very sad. No, she thinks rattlefast, _two_ someones. All stitched together, all unknown to her.

She tells it like this:

“Then I was brilliant scientist.” (This is Cosima Niehaus.) “But I quit to be with my family.” (This is Alison Hendrix.)

“Aw, come on,” Jesse says, “now don’t tell me you’re spoken for.”

Helena grins at him for a single, split second. Of course the only person who could speak-for Helena is Helena; of course she would never – be – married – againstherwill. Never. Never ever. Helena would not let someone else tell her that she is married, she would not, could not, she would rip them apart rip all of them apart she will kill everyone at this bar she will—

Not. She will not. Helena- _ma’am_ would not.

“Divorced,” she says, shrugging, because she is sheissheissheis divorced, she is divorced, no marriage for Helena. “After rehab drinking problems.”

With that, she has the story again. This is a story about a thousand copies; layer their paper lives together, Helena thinks, and you could almost make one whole human life.

_A miracle_ , she thinks, sour and hollow.

Nothing washes out the sour hollow taste of blasphemy from Helena’s mouth better than her sister, though, and besides the story wants ending.

“And now I am with my _sestra_ ,” she finishes, “having adventures.” She crunches through another pork rind with a short sharp sound.

(This is the only part of the story that is not a lie. It _is_. It is, it is it is it is.)

“You sure have led a life, huh?” Jesse asks, low, gentle, and Helena thinks, _yes, several of them._ She also thinks: _oh, Jesse, you have no idea_. The last thought makes her a little sad – but Jesse’s still talking.

“Wonder how a simple guy like me keeps a girl like you in a place like this,” he says, eyes flicking around before they meet hers.

Helena huffs breath through her nose, twitches off Helena- _ma’am_ ’s skin for a brief second. She sends that version of herself a brief apology and considers: how would you keep Helena-the-killer here, away from her sister?

You would have to tie her down. You would have to break her limbs.

“You would have to be very strong,” she says, instead.

He misinterprets.

* * *

They end up arm-wrestling, which soothes the hungry thing gnawing on Helena’s insides, the hungry thing that wanted goat-Carl-beast-Carl’s blood. Violence.

She goes easy on him, gentle easy, gentle easy as Jesse resting the glass of beer against the bar. Men, Helena has found, can get very angry when they do not _win_.

But Helena likes winning too, especially when winning means drinks. The more Helena drinks, the more she likes drinks and the more slippery she feels, warm and sliding in and out of her skin.

The more she drinks, the less she thinks about Sarah. The ache dulls.

She slams Jesse’s fist into the table and laughter bubbles out of her, laughter at the press of someone else’s skin pressed to her own. She is _winning_ , and she is warm and burning with alcohol and right now she does not even _need_ Sarah. Not one bit. She downs another shot.

(Possibly she has had too many shots. Has she had too many shots? Helena does not really remember, at this point. There are a lot of things she does not remember, and that is very nice. Almost as good as winning, and pinning Jesse’s arm to the table again and again and again, the way animals show dominance. I will push you down; you are weaker to me, and so you are my friend.

Yes? It’s all very fuzzy, in Helena’s mind, but part of her wants to bury her nose in Jesse’s shirt and smell. Friends. Maybe. Maybe that is what friends do.

Maybe she means another word. English is slippery too.)

The world blurs into a line of identical fists hitting identical tables, copies, _ha_. Helena wins a lot. The more she wins, the more she drinks. The more she drinks, the less she feels like Helena- _ma’am_ at all.

The more she wins, the more she _needs_.

Her grip slides with sweat and Jesse looks at her, grunts, “You know what?”

At this point Helena probably doesn’t know! He is surprisingly…surprising, this Jesse. She _likes_ him.

Mm, Helena’s all fuzzy. She likes him a _lot_.

“You have real pretty eyes,” Jesse says, throwing it down like a challenge.

Does she have nice eyes? Thinking about thinking about that makes something sharp poke through, something she does not want. She stores that thought for later and blurts, “You have a nice hat,” because he does.

Are those the sorts of compliments people give? Maybe they aren’t. To Helena Jesse’s eyes are just eyes, and she feels like saying _you smell nice_ wouldn’t be a good compliment at all.

So instead she says the next thing that comes to mind, letting it dribble out of her mouth to continue her previous thought.

“Very nice red face,” Helena says, and then Helena _wins_. Helena wins Helena wins and she loses her sweat-slippery grasp on Helena- _ma’am_ , pounds the table and laughs like an animal. She laughs like she laughed with—

Oh, look, another shot.

What was she saying?

Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. Jesse’s talking.

“Alright,” he says, rubbing his hands together, smearing Helena’s sweat into his skin. “Tie breaker.”

“Okay,” Helena says, violence rolling underneath her skin, the alcohol bringing it to a fever pitch, all of her buzzhumming. “Real challenge please.”

(She wants to _break_ someone.)

(Do not break Jesse! Do not break Jesse’s arm.)

They hunker down and Helena is about to let herself go (a little bit more each time) when Jesse says _wait_ , Jesse puts a hand on her arm. He pulls her from one skin to another and Helena remembers that she is supposed to be human. She looks at him. Sweat cools on the skin of her palm.

She looks at him. He looks at her. Helena’s stomach flips, again, and this time she knows it is not food.

“May I?” he asks, and he looks at Helena like she is something precious. Of course she could not say no; of course everyone wants to be loved, even Helena. Especially Helena, Helena who is always always hungry for love.

He pulls her, hands on her skin; it’s alright. Helena has decided that she likes him. His hands on her skin are allowed, maybe even welcomed (her skin hums) (it’s almost like—) (her skin) (hums).

It might be a good thing he’s leading her, too; Helena is not precisely steady on her feet right now. She dreams of falling, dizzily.

Jesse laces his fingers with hers and Helena dreams of falling, dreams of falling forever. She is so dizzy. Nobody has ever laid hands on Helena, not like this. Not for good reasons. He is gentle with her as glass; someone treating Helena gently makes Helena feel like someone who can be treated gently, closed circuit (maybe someone will be there for you, Helena, maybe maybe maybe).

It is too much, the alcohol and Jesse’s skin on her skin and the way he is looking at her, like she is _beautiful_. She does not know what to feel at all.

She falls forward. It is a little bit like gravity.

Her head hits Jesse’s shoulder and her nose is buried in his shirt, just like she wanted. She can smell it, smell him, smell all the ways he is different from – Helena. His arms fold around her, his head; she is cradled, like a child, but also she is nothing like a child. It is nothing like _Helena_ as a child, or even Helena- _ma’am_ as a child – but she does not want to think about children. She wants this, because she is warm all around her, all around warm skin on skin, and she is warm in the center of her too.

In unison (mir) (ror) they turn and look at each other and Helena can feel the pull; her mind clicks, (gun parts assembling,) puzzle pieces falling together, and she thinks about copy-lips on Paul’s lips (, thinks about Sarah leaving her behind in the car to wait like a child wait like a child Helena is a child

Helena _refuses_ to be a child).

She leans forward. The moment seems to last forever, like – like – like something. Something very slow. Her eyes flicker between Jesse’s eyes and his lips; he is looking at her too much, it is everything that she has ever wanted and she cannot stand it. She leans and leans and leans and – there.

Their lips meet.

Helena wakes.

Helena-the-killer wakes, Helena-the-animal wakes and wakes _hungry,_ suddenly throwing herself at Jesse from underneath Helena’s skin. Oh God, oh Sarah, this is all she has wanted, this is like climbing inside of another person and wearing them, this is warm and she wants to eat Jesse, eat him alive, she wants she _wants_ she is so hungry _Sarah_.

She runs hands all over Jesse’s body, frantic, clawing, Helena-the-animal frantic clawing frantic, clawing, hungry. Her hands won’t tell her where they want to _go_ , her whole body just sings _wantneedeverywhere_ please _everywhere_ and Helena obliges. She wants – she wants – she wants she wants she wants she wants

Break.

Jesse is ripped from her and it is Carl _oh_ Carl you stupid foolish man you corpse, you do not know you are a corpse but you are. Helena can smell the corpse on him and she is, all at once, an animal. She wanted to rip Jesse open. Now she wants to rip this man open, this man who has tried to take his place.

It is not really the same thing at all.

But a startled Helena is a startled animal and a startled animal lashes out, all fangs claws roars. A lifetime of violence stirs to life in Helena’s veins, and her muscles sing in memory. Her muscles sing with hours and hours of held-back violence; she was a dam and now she is just Helena.

In an easy motion she has a pool ball.

Then Carl has a pool ball too. It might not be in the way he wants it, but Helena does not _care_. She wants to crack his bones.

Now Helena is an animal, all fangs claws roars; she is a machine, all blood guts clockwork. Carl’s arm is broken, he is on the table, Helena does not remember doing these things but they hum with a truth and she thinks they are probably her fault. She probably did them. She does not _care_. The alcohol has abandoned her (like Sarah abandoned) LIKE SARAH ABANDONED HER. The thought blazes clear as anything through Helena’s mind, it _burns_ through Helena’s mind, she was whole and she was warm and happy and now she is so angryafraidsadlonelyhollowaching she cannot even _breathe!_ How _dare_ he!

More easy animal machine motions, she is on the table, her hands are on his head. She cannot decide what to do with him. Darkness is too good – or too bad, Helena thinks, too bad, for worse people, he does not even deserve darkness. She grabs his head and rolls it between her palms, thinks about popping it like a grape. Already her body is forgetting Jesse’s head under her hands for this and that makes her angrier and that makes her want to hurt him _more_.

He struggles – useless!

Someone else tries to stop her – _useless_ , useless as anything! Stupid corpse flies, bloated bodies, Helena is so angry, so angry, so angry, so afraid. The world is a haze of anger, the world blurs into a line of fists and faces and bodies made for breaking. It is too easy. Beneath the anger the hollowness lurks, squatting and waiting for her to acknowledge that it is there.

The world blurs, and then the police arrive.

When Helena settles into Helena she is cuffed, and on a table. Oh. There is blood on her nose. How did that happen?

The alcohol has left her. A lot of things have left her, like Jesse, and Sarah.

Oh. No. Sarah.

She had promised, hadn’t she? Had she? Had she promised, Helena does not think she had promised but she also does not think this will mean anything to Sarah. Sarah thought that she was the sort of animal who could be caged oh Sarah, oh no. Oh no.

Helena has made a terrible mistake, but all she can think of as the police pull her off the table is how much she liked it and how little she wanted it to end. She wants to be back where she was. She missed Helena- _ma’am_ like an ache, she misses Jesse and everything that came with him. She misses the way he looked at her.

They pull her off the table (she does not) (she does not _like_ to be touched she does not!) and she can hear Jesse yelling, Jesse lying. He is a little like Sarah in that he lies to protect the people he cares about. This means that he cares about Helena; Helena misses him, wants him, wants to put him on a leash and drag him along after her, wants him nowhere near her. If he never comes near her again Helena- _ma’am_ will stay alive, that Helena who was human. She will live on somewhere.

…But, no, she knows precisely how selfish she is. Helena _wants_.

“I want my boyfriend,” she calls, because she knows that was the word she wanted. That was the word she meant, when. Boyfriends look after their girlfriends and kiss them and tell them they look pretty. They go to fancy dinners and boyfriends pay for food. Helena wants in a way she hasn’t wanted anything except Sarah in a while. Pretty dream. Pretty little dream.

They don’t listen. They pull her outside, into the sun.

Helena thrashes and thrashes but these cops are the sort of people to listen to voices, not bodies. She wishes Sarah was here with her words to lie for her. She wishes she had stayed in the car. She wishes she had not stopped dancing. She wishes she had snapped Carl’s neck.

She wishes, wishes, wishes Sarah was there.

Her last wish comes true; time slows and Helena can hear her breath as she sees Sarah across the street, confused and beautiful, her hair blowing in the wind. Helena can almost smell her, would maybe be able to smell her if her nose was not filled with blood.

She is so sorry and ashamed and desperate, emotions rattling at the back of her throat, beating against the cage bars of Helena’s ribs. Sarah, oh, Sarah I am so sorry.

She looks at Sarah, Sarah whose gaze is the gravity of a whole other planet.

_Help,_ she thinks, and _I need you_.

“ _Sestra_ ,” she says, because to her that word means both of those things.

* * *

If Sarah tries to help her Helena cannot see it; instead she is stuffed into the car (it is small) (there is a grate on the back _cage_ ) and pushed into the police station.

She thinks about the last time she was in a police station, and giggles to herself. They give her funny looks and she wants to waggle her tongue but no, no, maybe she can stitch together the tattered scraps of Helena- _ma’am_ for long enough to get out.

They cuff her to a chair and Helena wants to scream from it – she is deeply, endlessly sick of handcuffs – so instead of screaming she thinks about dancing and tries to remember what it was like when other people were touching her.

She hums the song to herself, the song that said: _Crazy. That’s what they tell me_. She rocks back and forth (she is all animal, now) and remembers. And _wants_ , still. Is Sarah coming for her?

Maybe – Sarah – is not –

Jesse, though. Jesse stood between her and Carl and did not back away. He told her she had pretty eyes. Maybe.

“I want my boyfriend,” she says again. “Where is Jesse?” Where is Jesse? Where?

“No idea,” says the woman in her uniform. _Ugh_ , pig. Helena wants to go now. She rolls her eyes over to the police officer and lets a low displeased sound escape through her nose. Her companion is babbling some stupid things, charges, other nonsense. She speaks nonsense, Helena offers nonsense back.

“Good, so I continue my holiday,” she says; the joke is that it is not _her_ holiday, the joke is that her body is Helena-the-animal even though her voice is Helena- _ma’am_. Look at her, so many people beneath one skin. A thousand thousand copies to make one Helena. She grins, rolls her tongue around her mouth and watches the flustered cop tell her she can go.

Then she says:

“Your sister’s here.”

Oh. Sarah. Sarah _came_ and Helena feels a wave of guilt for ever doubting her, feels emptyachinghollow, feels sad and regretful and everything at once. She did not think Sarah would ever come. She thought she would be chasing Sarah forever, forever and ever, amen. She looks past the police officer with something too much like hope.

It dies.

It dies fast and screaming and bloody and for a breath Helena is confused – did she ever leave the warehouse floor? Is she still there? She looks down at her chest; there is no blood. Wait. No. She left, and followed Sarah, and followed Sarah, and followed Sarah, and now she is here.

She wonders then why her chest hurts so badly, so badly she cannot breathe around it.

“Sister,” lies Grace, mouth scraped raw as Helena is, “It’s good to see you.” She moves to sit down.

Helena looks at Grace. She cannot stop looking at all the ways she is not Sarah. She lists each and every individual thing in the back of her mind, underneath and behind the low bellow of hurt. Her mouth has opened at some point, the better to breathe with.

She can’t breathe. Why can’t she breathe? Breathe, Helena. Breathe.

(Over under around her pain is also sadness for Grace. Helena is so sad that some of it spills out of her, spills out for Grace, who Helena thought was never a liar. And yet in six words she has lied twice, lied twice from her red raw mouth.

She is still bad at lying, though. This is still the same.

_What happened to you, Grace?_ she thinks, because a part of her takes a mean sort of pleasure in asking it of someone else.

Another part of her understands, a little, what others mean when they ask her this. She does not want to understand.)

Her breath starts up again, the way it did after. Well.

“You tried to kill me,” she reminds Grace, because Helena just remembered and so Grace should remember too. At the same time Helena remembers what it is to be Helena, what it is to not be consumed by loss. It gives ground; it retreats back to the center of her. The world brightens.

Grace considers this, for a moment, and then says, “Yes.” Good. There they are. Grace is telling the truth again, and she is afraid, and Helena is Helena and she is alone.

She laughs a little, at the ridiculousness of it. She laughs because Sarah is not coming for her, she laughs because they are sitting in a police station discussing murder, she laughs at their matching red faces, she laughs. Sarah is not coming for her.

Helena’s head rolls onto Helena’s shoulder. It is a pale imitation of someone else’s head, someone else’s shoulder, someone else’s skin. Oh, Helena is so very, very tired.

“My father and I, we don’t…” Grace says, tripping over her words, her eyes prey-wide and prey-white and prey-frightened. “We don’t always see eye to eye, so…”

She bobs, flutters, twitches in her own skin. Oh Grace, you poor familiar animal. Helena knows what it is like to be you.

“He sewed you silent,” she says easily. Again: Grace is a familiar animal. Helena has been her, still nipping at the hand that feeds (the hand that refuses to feed the hand that beats the cruel hand). She did not learn to agree; she learned blind obedience, because this does not stop punishment but it lessens it. Slightly.

Sarah is gone Sarah is not here Sarah is gone who can Helena help? Who needs Helena? All she can do is say _Grace it will get better_ , because the word _Sarah_ is still rolling on her tongue and she needs someone to apologize to, she needs someone to need her.

“Your lips,” she says, lazy easy. Grace has all of the energy both of them need; she nods, twitches away.

“I had this also once,” Helena continues. “It will heal.”

“Helena,” Grace says in a whisper. Helena turns but does not look; she does not want to see, not really. There is nothing good Grace could say. She is not going to thank Helena. She would never, ever be Helena’s sister and she knows that Helena is a killer. She does not need Helena, does she? Does she?

“We want you to come back,” Grace whispers, but Grace, Grace that is not the same as needing at all. It is nothing the same.

“I have my _sestra_ now,” Helena whispers. “She needs me.” But her eyes fill with tears; she is lying, lying, lying. It’s funny, isn’t it: lying is all she has left of Sarah, the way all Sarah had left of Helena was her knife when Sarah took it. Sarah took Helena’s weapon, Helena is taking Sarah’s. _She needs me_. No. No one needs Helena at all.

_Sarah is coming back for me_ , she thinks, and she is lying. She can’t see anything through her tears. The world is hidden from her; the world is too unclear.

“She’s not coming back for you,” says Grace, soft, like she has read Helena’s mind. Helena wants to lie but words fill her throat all jagged, broken glass. She breathes, and thinks of the way Sarah went silent when Helena said _you would leave me behind_. She thinks about her silence now, now that Sarah has left her behind. Her breath wobbles and she thinks the only reason she has not started crying is that her head is tilted up, the better to watch the light.

_You make me cry, sestra_.

“Helena,” Grace says again, again with her name, again with Helena reduced to Helena, Helena no longer Sarah’s sister. Helena turns her head to look at Grace, a slow rusty movement.

“We want to take you to your children,” Grace says.

For a second time stops, shatters. Helena’s _children_. Her little impossible futures.

That is what they took, from inside of her. That is what they reached in took took took empty hollow Helena took rage Helena took _took_ Helena took.

Her hollowness sings and Helena grasps anger again, takes it firmly. Again anger comes to her when she needs it. Unlike other things.

“You took my babies from inside me,” she spits, so angry she wants to sob.

“Your eggs,” Grace says, wide eyes. “My father, he…he made them whole for you.”

“Why?” Helena asks, sharp as a knife, _why_ would you take, why would you take from me.

“Because he sees something beautiful in you,” says Grace.

Something beautiful in Helena. Something beautiful coming from Helena. Something _beautiful_ , a million beautiful children, a million children who could make up for all of the things Helena has done. _Beautiful_. No, no, Helena is not beautiful. Sarah is beautiful; Helena is not.

Could something beautiful ever come from Helena? Who would know? Helena doesn’t know, not really. She looks at Grace. Her eyes are so wide. She is the closest thing to true Helena has – Sarah lied and Sarah left and Jesse, well, Jesse only knew a lie.

_He sees something beautiful._ Not: _you are something beautiful._ Oh.

“But you don’t,” she whispers, to see if Grace could ever be good at lying.

Grace whips her head away (truth always hurts) and says, “Doesn’t matter what I see.”

Helena’s throat fills, she almost chokes on the bitterness of it. No, she thought not. She watches Grace step around lying neatly as anything. At least she is not lying. At least when someone steps around lying you can follow their footsteps and see the shape of it, that thing they are trying to avoid.

Helena is still a monster, then. But there was something beautiful inside of her. Maybe – maybe – maybe she could be beautiful. Maybe there is a chance for her to be redeemed, a chance for her to unmake all of the cruel things. A chance. A chance to help someone else be unbroken.

She closes her eyes; behind her lids it is as dark as a womb.

She can hear Grace shift and she opens her eyes, looks at her hand, her hand that has killed, her hand that has reached for Sarah. She wiggles her fingers and thinks, again, of Kira’s hand in her own.

“He will take my babies…” she murmurs, “and put them inside me, like…how I was made?”

She shapes her hand, makes it give her babies. Her hand is no longer a thing for taking lives, in this dream. It is a thing for giving lives. Giving and not taking, taking from inside Helena.

“How?” Grace asks, and Helena thinks – briefly – of her mother.

Her mother is dead. She smiles; it is a warped and twisted thing. Her mother is dead, her mother died when Helena’s hand was made for killing.

Now it is made for giving life, and that is a funny sort of joke.

She gives herself life, smiling at Grace. Smiling and smiling and smiling.

Grace nods, says soft, “Yes, like that.”

Before Helena can say anything, feel anything, think anything, the policewoman is back, back to let her go. Helena cannot stop looking at Grace as every possible thing rolls through her, every possible thing she can feel. It is like a tidal wave; she is drowning, again, she is always drowning. The hollowness in her floods.

She does not want to spend the rest of her life hollow.

(She does not want to spend the rest of her life chasing someone who will not ever stop or slow down.)

Grace leads her out of the back room, with its light and its bench; she is curled in on herself in her fear. She is no longer a pillar of fear, the way she was when Helena first knew her. Fear changes everyone, in time.

Grace leads her straight to a liar. There is a liar, hair-oil and snake-grin.

“Hello, Helena,” he says (Helena is so tired). “Your friend asked you to give me this.”

He holds out Jesse’s hat.

 

Jesse is not coming for Helena.

 

Sarah is not coming for Helena.

 

Helena is so tired of being alone.

 

She thinks about the story of Eve and the apple, this man who is all snake. She thinks about Eve’s children. Eve never had a sister. Eve was the beginning of everything.

Helena reaches out and takes the hat. She looks at Grace.

“Take me to my babies,” she says. The words fall heavy as stones from her mouth, and then they are gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Throw me in a landfill  
> Don't think about the consequences  
> Throw me in the dirt pit  
> Don't think about the choices that you make  
> Throw me in the water  
> Don't think about the splash I will create  
> Leave me at the altar  
> Knowing all the things you just escaped
> 
> Push me out to sea  
> On a little boat that you made  
> Out of the evergreen that you helped your father cut away  
> Leave me on the tracks  
> To wait until the morning train arrives  
> Don't you dare look back  
> Walk away  
> Catch up with the sunrise  
> \--"Landfill," Daughter
> 
> This is a situation where I'd really recommend listening to [the song in question](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpWO_byqSr8), because it definitely has the tone I was trying to convey here.
> 
> Please, please comment and leave kudos if you enjoyed. Thank you!


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